Learn how to paint free-hands from one of the best! This DVD set will show you how to easily create banners and free-hands for your own projects - both for your army or for showcase projects!Together with our Basing Series, we think this DVD set is a 'must' for everyone who is serious about painting miniatures.

What good is a beautifully painted miniature, if the base is not up to par? In part one of a five-part mini-series, Ben & Matt will show you all you need to know about Base Alchemy: EARTH. Whether you paint armies, want to create unit bases for your victorious units or plan to win the next painting competition - this set is for you.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Filming the material for your DVDs is a very time consuming process. But it is nothing compared to the amount of work that goes into editing your videos and authoring the DVDs.

We invested heavily in filming, light, sound and editing equipment and even were able to get Matt Cexwish on board for our recent projects to help us in the video editing process.

And with every project we are getting better, because we always learn new things. Some of the things we learn are painful, time-consuming and/or expensive - like the amount of work that goes into the sound-editing of our DVDs.

Post Editing

Designing print media is so much fun!

If you add up the work that went into the production of our Season 1.2 and 1.3 DVDs, you get to over one person year worth of time and money. 1 Year! Since we were four guys for this project, that translates into a little over three months per person - or close to 2400 total hours.

Quite insane when you think about it.

But having done 11 DVDs now (six for Season 1.1, two for Season 1.2 and three for Season 1.3) I can proudly say that we have quite a bit of experience now.

We are not only getting better, but we are getting much faster at what we do.

That will come in handy for 'Phase 2' of Painting Buddha - and that's what our Infinite Improbability Drive is all about: Doing things better, faster and ultimately cheaper ;)

Ben and Matt fighting over who gets the Stapler Gun

Sound Check

De-noising, de-bird-cheeping and de-watch-your-frame-ing the sound is one of the most time consuming parts of our DVD development.

So that is one of the area we addressed this week - we sound-proofed our recording studio!!!

And we had a ton of fun doing it. Soft foam acoustic insulation tiles, stapler guns and grown men - an explosive mix!

Mati has won. More gun, more fun!

Great success! - The Drakerys Files

We got to test our new acoustically enhanced studio right away as we are currently working on a little project for our friends at Don't Panic Games (Drakerys Kickstarter).

And what can I say - our latest investment payed of quite nicely - the sound quality is even better than before and the post-editing is be much faster. Great success!

As mentioned before, Operation Infinite Improbability Drive is a project that prepares us for 'Phase 2' of what we want Painting Buddha to be - and even if you don't know exactly what this is all about yet, you can rest assured that we are working very hard on this project ;)

Fuel the Drive!

With Season 1.2 and 1.3 finally being around the corner, we ask you to support us and help us to 'fuel our Infinite Improbability Drive'. How? Very simple! Check out our DVD sets, share & enjoy what we do and tell us what you'd like us to do for YOU!

We are ready to HEAVILY invest in our community. Support us so we can support you!

7th Edition 40k, Orks... Not what I am waiting for. For me the most anticipated release from Games Workshop this year is their 2013-2014 annual report.

After 7.5 posts full of warning signs and concerns about the direction GW is going, in January of this year, GW lost 25% of their stock value in a day, following a 12% drop in sales which resulted in 30% less profits.

With close to 40,000 views (how appropriate) part 8 of our epic series of walls of text turned out to be the most read article on our blog ever. It is clear that the community cares a lot about what happens at GW.

In the articles leading up to part 8 I warned about what I felt was going wrong at GW and this January I had this certain 'I told you so' moment.

Dividends & Crystal Balls

The financial year 2013-2014 is over and the annual report should be out in 2-3 weeks, but today I will look deep into my Crystal Ball to see if we can already tell something about this report.

But before that, we'll look at the past for a moment.

5 year chart

As you can see on the five year chart, after reaching their high at 830 pence per share on October 1st 2013, they hit a one-year low on March 4th hitting 471 pence. Since then the share price has recovered quite nicely and reached 670 pence again as of today.

6 month chart

This graph shows 'the fall' in a little more detail. What's interesting to me is that in spite of lack of any news the share price picked up again at the beginning of April and - had you invested on March 1st, you'd be happy (but not surprised) to hear that you just made 42% profit on your investment. Not bad!

The question is why? There really weren't any relevant news or announcements on the GW Investor Relations site. On April 11th, the following 'Interim Management Statement' was released:

"Games Workshop Group PLC today issues the following interim management statement for the period 2 December 2013 to 6 April 2014.In the four months to 6 April 2014 trading has been broadly in line with the board’s expectations."

Very exciting news! NOT. "Trading has been broadly in line with the board's expectations". Pretty much says nothing, but then again, that's how these statements always are.

But then on June 6th we got the following information regarding this year's Dividend.

"Games Workshop Group PLC announces that the Board has declared a dividend of 20 pence per share. This will be paid on 4 July 2014 for shareholders on the register at 13 June 2014."

Woopies! A dividend! That's great, isn't it! About 3% on the current share price. But is this dividend really this great? And can we maybe extrapolate some information regarding the financial report from this?

Well, let's look at GAW's IFRS fundamentals:

May I point your attention to the already flashy red box on the bottom. First column is 2013, second 2012 - all the way down to 2009.

We can see that after Mark Wells took over and GW made some good money again, payment of dividends was resumed in 2010. Back then it was 25p dividends per share on a 48p earning, the first cautious signal that things are looking brighter for shareholders.

Between 2011 and 2013 we can see a very strong correlation between earnings per share (EPS) and Dividends per Share (DPS, no guys, it's not damage per second): 36p earnings = 38p dividends, 46.8p earnings = 45p dividends, 51.5p earnings = 58p dividends.

What does it all mean?

Having said that, let's revisit the 20p dividends per share. 20p is 38p or 66% less than the 58p dividend from last year.

So, what does it all mean? Well, we don't know this for sure until we see the final report, BUT, we can create a few scenarios:

Profits are down significantly to about 20p per share or - at 31,859,196 shares - to 6.4m for the period (compared to 16.32m for 2012-2013). Down 60%.

Scenario 2: It's bad with a handbrake.

2:1 correlation between profits and dividends (like in 2010)

GW was not able to significantly stop the downward trend in sales. However, by cutting cost (see above) and a few quick money-grabs (7th Edition), they were able to stabilize on a lower overall sales level.

Profits are down to about 40p per share or 12.8m for the period. Down 30% from last year.

By cutting the dividend, GW puts some cash into the war stash for next year. If this scenario turns out to be right, I fear the GW management expects the trend to continue and/or they have no idea how to stop it.

Scenario 3: Something in between or something completely different.

The answer is 42. Let's try that.

Personally, I would be shocked and at least a little bit surprised if this year's dividend of 20p would mean they only did 20p earning per share. IF that were the case it would be pretty much disastrous and the worst-case scenario. Well, it could always be worse, but you know what I mean.

However, I would be equally surprised if GW was able to stop their downward trend in sales. Some indications from GW stores all over Europe who told me that sales are at about 50% of last year point in this direction. From the few independent retailers I know I hear similar stories, including GW's attempt to move sales into this year by offering discounts in the next fiscal year, but then again, none of these statements are facts nor are they representative.

But killing all Games Days, killing all (?) Golden Demons (Rumor: There will be Golden Demon UK this year, NOT a Games Day), firing most of continental Europe and quick money grabbing schemes (7th Edition in May? Seriously?) to me look like attempts to cut cost wherever they can and make as much cash as possible. I almost wrote desperate attempts. Good thing I didn't.

Let's make this a little game. I think that their profits are down by 42% to 9,5m for this year or about 30p per share. I base this purely on the fact that I don't think GW did better than the first half of the year and that 42 is always the answer. No science behind this. Gut feeling. And I got plenty of gut, just saying...

What do you think? What do you expect from the financial report? Do you even care? Go ahead and leave some comments below and try to GUESS the profit loss that GW will post in their annual report. I am standing at 42% ;)

Check out yesterday's BEEBLE・BABBLE #9 with Dizzy Angel Demon and Creature Caster's Jeremy Glen, where we talk about Life, the Hobby Universe and Everything. The GW related section starts at around 40:05.

Friday, June 13, 2014

We sent out the following personal message to all of our early-beard supporters two days ago. Today I would like to publicly update all of you on the status of our Season 1.2 and 1.3 DVD sets.

Dear Bruddha!

You are one of our many 'Early Beard' Supporters for our new Season 1.2 & 1.3 DVD sets and are probably wondering what happened to your order and when the DVD sets will be shipped to you.

Unfortunately, I have some very disappointing news for you: We will have to delay the release of the two new seasons until the End of June (another two weeks). The tentative release day is now June 23rd.

With this email I would like to explain to you in detail what went wrong.

--------------------------------------------------------

The 'Good' Delay

When we made Season 1.2 and 1.3 available for pre-order, we announced both sets to consist of two DVDs.

When we started editing the material in January, we quickly noticed that we had too much awesome material for Season 1.3 to fit on two DVDs.

The question for us was: Do we cut the material down to size and stick to the original release schedule or will we simply add a third, free DVD to Season 1.3? For us, the answer was clear: We wanted to give you the best value and decided to go for three DVDs.

As we updated you on our blog and on Facebook, this decision meant that our original production plan (editing until the end of March and delivery mid April) was seriously in danger.

So we invested in a new rendering-super-PC and took Matt Cexwish - our featured artist on the Season 1.3 DVD set - on board for three months to edit the videos - again, everything just to give you more value than you expected.

Editing a single DVD takes a long time and we were very happy that we were able to complete all the editing and pre-manufacturing processes by mid April. Our DVD manufacturer received the masters in the third week of April. In short, we were three weeks late but gained an extra DVD for you.

We have had some very good experience with our DVD replicator when we did Season 1.1 - Target Identified. They delivered the DVDs right on time and doing business with them was generally very pleasant.

Like with Season 1.1, our contract with the DVD replicator for Season 1.2 and 1.3 states that we would receive the finished DVD sets 10-12 working days after 'approval' of all the proofs for print media (packaging and so on). We approved the production in the first week of May.

Even though we expected the delivery no later than the third week in May, I felt that I should play it safe by scheduling the shipment of your DVDs for the last week of May - after all, there are a lot of public holidays in Germany in May. We prepared everything to get your orders out as soon as we would receive them.

Since the approval of the proofs I was in contact with the DVD replicator at least twice a week to inquire about the project status and a delivery date, even just a tentative one. I was always told that the project 'was going according to schedule', but a definite date was not quite available yet.

By the third week of May - the week we expected the delivery - I still had no delivery date and our project manager at the DVD replicator 'went black' - I could not get a hold of him, no answers to my phone calls or emails.

That is when I contacted the owner of the company for the first time and he promised me an update immediately. In spite of my daily inquiries it took a week to get an update from him. He told me that the production was almost finished - and I am going to spare you any further details - three days later (last Friday night) I finally got a reply from our project manager: They had not even started production yet.

On Tuesday this week we finally received a tentative delivery date for the DVD sets: June 23rd.

Two more weeks.

We could not believe it. I could not believe it. In spite of all of our efforts and investments, 10-12 production days turned into 8 weeks.

--------------------------------------------------------

Blame & Responsibility

It is always easy to blame someone for something they did or didn't do. I generally find that to be counter-productive as I believe that you only need to identify who's responsible.

At the end of the day, I am personally responsible for what we as Painting Buddha do. I promised you two awesome DVD sets and so far I failed to deliver. And yes, I find this unacceptable myself. You deserve better - and we can do better. I can do better.

Believe me when I say that all of us here at Painting Buddha: Ben, Mati, Matt and me are at least as frustrated as some of you understandably must be.

Lessons learned

After we completed all of our editing work in April, Ben, Mati and I sat down and critically evaluated our first year as Painting Buddha - even before we knew about the delay in the DVD production. I also personally talked to many of our friends and supporters world-wide to ask them how we can improve.

We have big plans. We want to be the perfect hobby related community company for you. We want to Share & Enjoy our hobby! And we will continue to work hard to get there!

Yes, we are doing a lot of things right, but there is so much we can do better, differently and more efficiently. If you want to help us shape the future of your community company, I invite you to engage in our 'Operation Infinite Improbability Drive'!

In closing, I would like to once again apologize for the delay of our Season 1.2 and 1.3 and for the frustration you must feel. I would like to thank you for your continued support and your patience! We could not do this without you - and we promise to work hard on getting better!

Thank you!

Best regards from all of us here at Painting Buddha,

Michael Bartels

Manabu - paintingbuddha.com

I have received an incredible amount of positive and encouraging emails in response to this status update. To be honest it was a very humbling and moving experience for me. It proves that we have the best supporters in the Universe - and working for Bruddhas like you makes everything worthwhile for us!

We are, however, aware that not everybody is going to be happy about the DVD delay. Again, I can only apologize and accept responsibility at this point. We are very critical about our shortcomings and in one of our next 'Operation Infinite Improbability Drive' updates we'll talk about a few more things we currently are not really good at - and talk about how we are going to fix them.

I promise you that while we probably never will be perfect, like the Borg we will not yield in our pursuit of perfection. Resistance, after all, is futile.

The good news for all of you out there is that the Early Beard Special will be extended until June 30th and all early beards include the super-secret-stretchgoals.

;tldr

The release of the Season 1.2 & 1.3 DVD sets has been delayed until about June 23rd. I am very sorry.

SHARE & ... well, just SHARE, I guess.

Early Beard Deals extended until June 30th! All stretch-goals included!

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Sources from inside GW indicate that their sales distribution for armies is something like 90% Warhammer 40k, 10% Fantasy, <1% Lord of the Rings.

Regardless of whether that is correct or not, the ever-lasting question, the epic battle in tabletop-history is: Fantasy or Sci-Fi?

Did you know that soon™ we will find out - for free?

Fallen Frontiers vs Drakerys

Right now there are two awesome Kickstarters fighting for you pledges: "Drakerys" by Don't Panic Games and "Fallen Frontiers" by Scale Games (the guys behind Scale 75).

Coincidentally, they both started about the same time, the both have the same running time - and right now, they are both very close to breaking the 100000€ barrier (one in pound, the other in dollar). Both Kickstarters are produced very professionally and both promote their respective games very well.Both cost about the same.

At the time of writing, they are almost even on the amont of backers, too.

Both games promise exciting new gaming concepts - and if you like, you can watch our Beeble・Babble #8 with the guys behind Fallen frontiers. The game mechanics indicated in this game sound awesome. Let me know if you like these kind of interviews with crowd-funding companies and I'll try to get some more interviewees ;)

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Just in case the title didn't already give it away here's a full disclosure: This post is slightly crazy and safe for entertainment purposes only. It's just me being Zaphod Beeblebrox. He'z just ziz guy, you know? :D

Warm up exercise: The Dollar Bill

I am a big fan of conspiracy theories, hidden and cryptic messages and the like. Not that I believe in any of them, but I find many (not all) of them very, very entertaining.

So today I will give you a new 'easter egg' to ponder over. What are the secret messages hidden in the official seal of the Galactic President?

Today I won't give you any hints at all. Just shoot ahead. What can you find? What are the hidden messages? Search for meaning in the symbols, see how many you can find! :D

You can post your thoughts in the comments below or shoot me an email with your attachments of scientifically accurate scribblings all over the beautiful seal ;) I'll share the best 'conspiracy theories' and numberphile answers with you at the end of the 42 days of "Operation Infinite Improbability Drive".

I'll also probably give you some hints or clues along the way. And I am convinced that you find things that even I didn't see yet - and maybe with your ideas we can adjust the seal to make it even more conspiring! ;)

Monday, June 2, 2014

Granted, not all of the posts on this blog are about painting miniatures. Most of them are hobby related. And if they are not, they are nerd-related. Many of you like it, some of you don't. In short, masterminis.net is really just my personal blog where I write about things I like to write about.

In our 42 day project "Operation Infinite Improbability Drive" (we are on Tee minus 34) a lot of things we are doing right and a lot of things we are doing wrong (or not at all) will be revisited. When we say that our community is our #1 goal, we mean it. Our DVD sets are just one small part in the big scheme of things - you deserve more!

So we have started looking at everything we do and we want(ed) to do. That even includes our shortcomings - and will come up with solutions to fix them. We'll do this publicly. And we would like to hear what YOU would like us to do for you.

If you have any ideas, requests or complaints - shoot us an email! I guarantee you that I will answer all of them! What would you like us to do (or not to do)?

When these 42 days are over, we will have gradually revealed more and more of our vision for our hobby. And for us the sky is not the limit. Space and beyond is where we want to go!

Disclaimer: Among our subjects in this post are such diverse elements as:

- an announcement for Beeble・Babble #8 with the "Fallen Frontiers" guys

- recommendation for a painting class- news about a new Kickstarter, a new online magazine and a private sale

Space Babble #8Tonight at 8pm we will have our good friends Elías Alonso Herranz, Alfonso "Banshee" Giraldes and "Adrian the Illustrator" in our live-show "Beeble・Babble #8". You can watch it live here - and as always we will answer your questions in the YouTube comments section during the show! They will talk about their awesome Kickstarter for "Fallen Frontiers", a Sci-Fi tabletop game with beautiful plastic (!) miniatures. Check out this trailer - for the record: I demand a full feature movie, people!

Class Action

Our good friend Fernando Ruiz from Heroes & Villains Miniatures will hold a masterclass painting Seminar in Blumberg, one hour south of Stuttgart in Southern Germany from June 20th-22nd. There are a few places left, information and reservation can be found on the German "Bemalforum" (clicky clicky).The workshop will be in English. Fernando is not only an incredible and accomplished painter, he has also conducted his workshops all over the world. Be a better painter! ;)

Of money and Canyons

Our Bruddha Martin from (T)Raumschmiede has finished his Redmaw Canyon gaming table. If you want to get inspired, check out this video! The other video-links can be found on (T)Raumschmiede's blog. Currently, he sells some of his stuff to pay the rent and finance his time at university. Check it out!

Speaking of money... In last weeks post about the many exciting Kickstarters, I totally forgot to include "Last Saga", a project by Nicolas Diaz from the UK. Last Saga is a skirmish wargame set in a sci-fi universe, represented by miniatures of high quality metal. We really dig the character design - and with the project already funded, there's no harm in 'checking it out' ;) Don't blame me if you back yet another campaign, though ;)

New Online Magazine

By now you should already know the free Wamp "Portal" magazine, an awesome source of inspiration. You might also have heard about the successful Figure Painting Magazine. Two awesome magazines are good, but what is better than two? 42? That's also right. 42 is more than two! WIP modeller magazine is a new independent magazine dedicated to sculpting, painting, displaying, collecting and gaming with miniature figures from all genre's. W.I.P. Magazine is published by Maloma Games di Marco Gravina of Italy - the magazine is in English. A download will cost you 3€ - or 14€ annually (6 issues). Good value, I think.The magazine is so fresh that I did not even have a chance to browse through it myself yet - if you would like to check it out, there is a free sample available on their site. Question: What is the product id for a free sample of WIP modeller magazine?Answer: 42.

See?

Concerning Easter Eggs (rated slightly silly)

If you follow us for quite a while now, let's say at least since December last year, you may have followed the frantic discussion on 'finding the Easter Egg' in our traditional "21 days of hoopy holidays Adzventzkalender" extravaganza.

Even though I told you that the answer was 42, no-one found it - even though two of you got reeaally close to the solution!

Morse code! Hm.... Well, kind of ;)

For future reference, it is important for you to understand how complex, silly and far-fetched some of our thought processes are, and that is why we shall now a) reveal the secret Easter Egg publicly and b) announce a new Easter Egg for you to ponder over...

So: In every Answer-o-Mat video the "don't push this button" button flashed in the following sequence: long-short-long-short-long-short.

Just to give you an idea to what length some of you went: Bruddha Florian studied morse code for 3 hours and came up with the word "KRU". He found the Kru people, an ethnic group who lives in the interior of Libera.

Kru. It was a really good answer. But it was not correct, because it wasn't 42. I think if we ever design an alien race, we should call them Kru. In honor of our extraordinary Bruddha Florian ;)

long-short-long-short-long-short.... I also said: "Don't think in letters. What else is there?" Well, since 42 consists out of numbers, let's try this again. This time with numbers. Digital. Binary.

Wait a minute!!! 101010? Isn't that binary for 42? It sure is! See? It really wasn't that hard now, was it? ;)

Tomorrow, we will give you a real challenge.All of you will be able to find some eggs. If you can find all of them, however, remains to be seen. I am not sure I found all of them myself! Must take a closer look... ;)